Have you ever been to a football stadium?
La Liga. Final Match day. Real Madrid vs FC Barcelona. As the players are walking out of the dugout, and onto the legendary field of Santiago Bernabeu, the Catalan players are facing a staggering white wall. 85000 people dress in all white, building up nerves.
It leaves an impression.
You're always aware of it as it has essentially taken over your senses. Now instead of El Clasico, imagine a labyrinth of storefronts in a marketplace, all selling the same stuff and vying for your attention. A brand comes and paints over every single space available in their colors, their logos, their motifs. It has taken hold of your mind, even if you don't know it.
This is the power of branding cluster markets.
Before we go any further, let's get on board about what exactly we mean by cluster markets and how important in BTL Marketing.
Think about an area within a city where every shop deals in the same product/service - wholesale spice markets in Khari Baoli (which happens to be the largest one in Asia) or the power tools market in Ajmeri Gate.
By that logic, cluster markets are essentially pockets of commerce built around a particular theme, where customers come in knowing what they want.
Now that we know what cluster markets are, let's talk about the power of cluster markets.
Whenever a brand decides to brand an entire market cluster, it's kind of like a nice bottle of perfume in a sea of cheap cologne. It's about standing out while being surrounded by similar surroundings, announcing their brand, and saturating consumer's eyes and senses, as well as their brain.
And it's shown to work. Consumers are noticeably more inclined to engage with that particular brand, trumping other brands during the consideration phase, post which they're the talk of town.
Overwhelming competitors by embedding your brand
Cambridge defines the term Fortress as 'a large, strong building, or a group of buildings that can be defended from attack'. They're built purposefully to rule over and defend vast territories, as well as being the perfect weapon for projecting power and dominance.
Coming back to modern times, a brand investing heavily into painting the entire area with their colors is essentially building a modern stronghold, making it extremely difficult for other brands to penetrate that market.
And that stronghold isn't just physical - it's also psychological. When a brand takes over an entire market cluster, they are also taking over mindshare; they are embedding themselves within that cluster to a point that they're intrinsic and inseparable from each other.
Built to last
At the end of the day, everything boils down to one thing - return on investments. It may just be a momentary spike in sales, but what we're after is creating long-term brand equity.
Take an 'Adhesive Bandage' for example, what might that be? If you've asked the same question, that's exactly what we're talking about. Band-Aid, as it's known more colloquially, is just a product name for an adhesive bandage, but through Johnson & Johnson's unceasing branding, the term Band-Aid has now become synonymous with everything that sticks on someone's skin post a superficial wound.
When a brand decides to go the 'branding cluster market' route, it becomes near impossible for their competitors to challenge their stronghold, resulting in the brand becoming analogous with the market itself.
Tying it all up
If you've read through all the content and have come to a conclusion along the lines of 'branding cluster markets is essentially about occupying as much space as possible', you're not entirely wrong.
It's more than that. It's about creating a presence that urges your customers to act. It's not just about associating with the market, but being the market, leveraging brand activation marketing.
And that is the true power of branding in a cluster market.